In New Jersey, 55% of prison inmates are Black. Incarcerated youth, also disproportionately Black, can remain plagued by court fines into adulthood. In custody matters, Black children wait longer to get a permanent home.

These are some of the disparities in the state’s judicial system that the New Jersey Supreme Court has recognized in recent months, after the death of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning around the world.

Last week, the Supreme Court announced a yearlong action plan, laying out steps it says will make the judicial system fairer for people of color, from ensuring more diverse, impartial juries to reducing probation terms and removing fines that keep people tied to the judicial system long after rehabilitation.

Judge Glenn A. Grant, acting administrative director of the courts, said the Supreme Court has been working to improve racial equity in the courts for years, most notably with the elimination of cash bail in the state, but the recent social unrest gave them an opportunity to reaffirm that commitment with specific goals and actions.

“Reducing timeframes for supervision will have a direct impact on many, many individuals. Eliminating fines and penalties for juveniles, likewise an extraordinarily important area,” Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said Friday.

“It’s a commitment that we will follow through in concrete areas that we believe will make an important difference in terms of equal treatment, access and fairness questions,” he said.

New Jersey, like the rest of the country, is grappling with the impact of racism and bias, especially in policing and law. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced statewide police reforms and legislators are pushing bills aimed at diversifying jury pools and police forces and increasing police transparency.

At the same time, a lack of diversity in the judiciary remains an issue. Only 17% of the 447 judges in the state’s superior, appellate, supreme and tax courts are minorities, according to a 2019 report of the Supreme Court.

Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina, a Cuban native, is the only Supreme Court justice of color. If nominee Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a Haitian-American lawyer and former assistant U.S. attorney, is confirmed to the Supreme Court later this year, she will be the first Black woman and only the third Black justice ever to serve.

A need for diverse, unbiased juries

Recognizing the need to root out bias in jurors, the judiciary said it will expand juror orientation regarding bias, write new mandatory jury selection questions and mandatory jury charging instructions, and consider court rule changes regarding impartiality in juror selection.

Jennifer Sellitti, of the state Office of the Public Defender, said she thinks the judiciary can do more to ensure juries are unbiased.

One way, she said, would be to allow attorney-conducted voir dire, a practice used in most states where attorneys can question potential jurors instead of just judges. Now, she said, a judge can ask if the defendant’s race will affect the jurors’ ability to be impartial, but it generally doesn’t go beyond that.

“Our jury selection process is just not as robust as it is in other states. I would like to see us look at being able to have more frank discussions with jurors about race, because I think that is a way that you really test bias in the system,” she said.

Rutgers Law professor Stacy Hawkins, a member of the Supreme Court’s Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement that advised the justices on this and other policy initiatives, said they are right to focus on diversifying juries.

“It’s one thing to inform juries of bias and train them on implicit bias, it’s another thing to just have diverse juries, so that the operation of implicit bias is reduced because you have a diversity of perspectives,” Hawkins said. “And we know that diverse juries tend to engage in more thoughtful discussion particularly around racial issues.”

Last month, a bill passed the Assembly that could increase diversity by expanding the source list for potential jurors to include those with state ID cards, using public utilities or on government assistance.

A bill to eliminate past convictions as a disqualifier for jury service has also been proposed, but never got out of committee.

The state is also looking at whether peremptory challenges — which allow attorneys to exclude a limited number of jurors without giving a reason — are being used to whitewash juries.

Grant said the court has been working with external experts for roughly 18 months to analyze jury composition and peremptory challenge use, and hopes the results will be available this fall.

Attorneys must give a reason if their peremptory strike is challenged as potentially race-based, but every year cases across the country are still overturned because Black jurors were unfairly excluded.

Ending the cycle of court-involvement

The Supreme Court also committed to reforming the use of probation, so that defendants are not stuck in the court system for ages, always facing the potential for reincarceration for missing a probation appointment or drug test.

Others might be kept on probation for years for fees or unpaid child support, which then only impairs their ability to make a living, Grant said.

“The science says the longer you have someone on supervision, the greater the probability that person reoffends,” Grant said. “If a person has satisfied all of the other conditions and you’re simply keeping them on because they have a balance, that is not a benefit to anyone.”

The plan said the court will codify recommendations for probation lengths for adults, “reexamine durational requirements” for probation, and look at ways to improve the effectiveness of juvenile probation terms.

In the juvenile system, the Supreme Court is looking at rescinding existing and possibly eliminating court-imposed fines for juveniles, including many who are now adults. The court would like to wipe out those debts to “give people a fresh start,” he said. It would be a similar move to the court’s 2019 decision to dismiss more than 787,000 unresolved, minor offenses that were at least 15 years old.

Lengthy municipal court matters, including warrants issued for failing to appear on minor offenses, can also keep people stuck in a harmful cycle.

Grant said the court is already trying to make it easier for people to resolve these issues by expanding the number of offenses that can be handled by paying a fine online, never requiring a court appearance.

A new online dispute resolution system, where a defendant can work out a deal with the prosecutor remotely, should be rolled out statewide next month, Grant said.

The action plan also commits to the following goals:

· Making the ongoing anti-bias legal education mandatory for all judges and attorneys.

· Using new technology to make the expungement process easier.

· Improving language access for remote court proceedings and indigenous language services.

· Weighing whether some records that “create inappropriate hardships for disadvantaged populations,” including landlord/tenant complaints, should no longer be public.

· Improving the landlord-tenant process by sharing clearer information and ensuring tenants representing themselves get fair settlements.

The action plan also notes the court will continue to collaborate on and support legislative reforms, including possibly modifying or eliminating mandatory minimum terms, limiting incarceration, probation and fines for juveniles, and continuing municipal court reform, including possible consolidation of courts.

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Rebecca Everett may be reached at [email protected]. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.